Image credit: Barrett Biggers, Yin Yang Tao Te Ching
part 5 of a series
That is the law
I realised that I had to repeat this idiotic formula; and then began the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoning a mad litany, line by line, and I and the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to side in the oddest way, and beat their hands upon their knees; and I followed their example. I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world. That dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here and there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and chanting,
“Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
“Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
“Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
“Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
“Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”–H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau
This is a tale of two threads, woven into a silly yarn. One having to do with theory of history, another with theory of ethics, neither worth the cost of purchase.
Odds are you haven’t spent much time pondering the rise of civilizations and their relation to one another. Or, possibly, their lack of relation. Which would go some way to explaining why, if you read something like, “It is at least arguable that every civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last resort, from a single centre—‘carried’ like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession”,1 you might sail on without noticing that the author ran you onto a reef.
That’s the first thread (theory of history).
It is equally unlikely that, even if you have read Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, you’ve read the Appendix. Who reads appendices?
Yet it is in the Appendix that you will find the core of Lewis’s argument. It is there that Lewis presents his Tao (Natural Law or Way), a set of virtue ethics governing all human relations across space and time.
And how might he have accomplished that astonishment? Introducing thread two:
If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason in man. From the Babylonian Hymn to Samos, from the Laws of Manu, the Book of the Dead, the Analects, the Stoics, the Platonists, from Australian aborigines and Redskins, he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery and falsehood, the same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young, and the weak, of almsgiving and impartiality and honesty. He may be a little surprised (I certainly was) to find that precepts of mercy are more frequent than precepts of justice; but he will no longer doubt that there is such a thing as the Law of Nature.2
And from such a scholarly enterprise (historical and literary), the Apologist—now acting not as an Apologist (as even pagans have contributed; the Apologist part comes later) but as a philosoph—spins his yarn, cherry picking textual examples with their fictional common source to produce eight Natural Laws, together comprising The Law.
As to thread one, Lewis might have done well to spend some time with Toynbee’s A Study of History, wherein he would have read (emphasis added):
The representatives of our species [of society] constitute a continuous series ranging between two extremes. At one extreme we find societies that are wholly unrelated to any others either earlier or later than themselves. At the other extreme we find societies that are related so intimately to their predecessors that the relation verges upon identity.3
And in fact, archaeologists have identified five primary (independent) civilizations,4 and have criteria to distinguish them from secondary (dependent) civilizations.5 Much of that knowledge post-dates Lewis’s diffusionist claim, but he certainly must have been aware of Mesoamerican civilizations, isolated from the ancient Near East, Egypt, and Europe; long before the lanteen sail had been invented, allowing tacking close to the wind and transoceanic voyages. (And of course, “Redskins” don’t qualify as a civilization, though the term does qualify as a racial slur.6)
No, there is no common civilizational source encoding a single virtue ethic. So much for Apostolic succession as a theory of history, you sniff.
As for thread two (theory of ethics), well, judge for yourself.
Calming down a bit (count to ten, concentrate on breathing, focus on objects far away), you ask, That is his argument? Yes, that is his argument. That is The Law.
It hardly matters what “Law” Lewis imagines he’s discovered, as the methodology is so obviously … flawed (to be as charitable as possible). Bat shit insane, you blurt, having lost all patience with those who take this Apologist seriously. But he took it as seriously as things can be taken. From the alternative, subjectivism, “comes the disease that will certainly end our species (and, in my view, damn our souls) if it is not crushed”.7 Pretty chesty….
What you find genuinely surprising is that Lewis so convinced himself of his Natural Law that he held his evangel’s ethics in rather lower regard than do other Christians and Jesus followers you’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Christian ethics were nothing new. They have parallels in other classical texts; rabbinical, Babylonian, Egyptian, Ninevite, Chinese. The Christian golden rule is an improvement on its Stoic and Confusian antecedents—but only an improvement, not an innovation. “We [Christians} have long recognized that truth with rejoicing. Our faith is not pinned on a crank.”8
Lewis also might have done well to read his own favorite collection of texts, which have multiple counter examples to each of his Natural Laws (see Handy Appendix).
But honestly, what would you expect from someone while, as an atheist, had a deep interest in the Celtic occult and, as a Christian theist, had this anthropology?
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat [“it truly hides”]—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.9
You have no words, for so many words.
But … you might be a naturalist. You might be an emotivist. You might be gay. Which, in any of those cases, you would recognize yourself as the horror and corruption, to be “loved” but not indulged flippantly, your very self being the nightmare. You might have become used to that from Christians, with their love, which you could do without.
You have your hopes, typically to be disappointed. Unless you meditate, and thereby learn to evacuate the apprehended world and find meaning in your breaths. Or at least distraction. Or maybe you focus on some word or phrase, a mantra, rocking back and forth, repeating it autistically to defeat that evolutionary marvel—your frontal cortex. Failing all that, you might resort to chemicals in one form or another. Alcohol, gummies, psychedelics, fentanyl. All in hopes of finding a reality more meaningful than the one you inhabit. Or, at least, one less present.
And, you know, good for you. Knock yourself out. Because life is at least too long as too short (the latter only visible in envious retrospect; the former in the hourly experience of tedious existence, requiring some intervention).
If there were a Tao, you might expect to find it in our common biological heritage. You might hope that what binds the species supervenes on what distinguishes cultures. In which case, you are bound to be disappointed, as we learn more. There is not one, but two evolutionary forces at work upon you. One biological, the other cultural.10
What might biology have on offer? Well, first, you might notice that you’re not a wolverine. You don’t belong to a solitary species but a social one. So social, in fact, that the technical term is eusocial. That’s a Greek thing, an intensifying prefix, so something like supersocial. A second thing to notice is that humans are not genetic clones. Pomerine ants are social, but they’re all the same. Humans are one (as a species), but not the same (as cultures). You yourself are troublingly unique (as a phenotype). A third thing to notice is that there is only one species of homo these days. That was not always the case, and you could argue flat or round whether that’s a good thing now. You might be charmed to have that Neanderthal butler….
And with the luck (questionable as to good or bad) that your species exists, it comes equipped with a biological toolkit to assist in persistence. For homo sapiens sapiens, it includes such things as cooperation, a rudimentary sense of fairness, reciprocal altruism, kin and group loyalty, rule enforcement, shaming, punishment (or extermination) of bullies. You have mirror neurons, giving you a propensity for empathy. You also have an insula, giving you the ability to feel disgust. All sorts of handy tools to do all manner of things—and build all manner of cultures.
And that’s the trouble, as that’s where the other evolutionary force comes in: culture. Then it’s Katie bar the door. Which is how you get such cultural variation as Talibani Afghanistan and democratic Denmark. Which is how you can override biological norm filters, such as the taboo against conspecific violence, employing any number of handy of cultural tools: pseudospeciation (black slaves are subhuman, Jews are rats), moral distance (bombing from 30,000 feet rather than bayoneting), social norm enforcement (stoning adulterouses).
Better still, if your group has scaled to the point where it requires invention of a big, punishing god, Divine Command Theory might come into play, which can overcome any biological norm. “Their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.” Who ordered that, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader that ordered the October 7th attack? Nope. That was YHWH (Hosea 13:16), the same lord also celebrated for the Akedah: “Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you’” (Genesis 22:2). Law of Special Beneficence? Biology is handy; culture is handier still.
So, where does all of this land?
Nietzsche, a classist, was genuinely appalled that the noble values of the Greco-Roman world had been abandoned in favor of Judeo-Christian slave morality. He wanted chestiness, and saw in subjectivism an opportunity: values could be chosen.
Lewis, also a classist, was genuinely appalled by the rejection of certainty, preferring instead to identify a set of interlocking virtues from the great literature of the world, together comprising transcendent Laws. He also wanted chestiness, but saw in subjectivism a calamity: values dare not be chosen.
Both prophesied abolitions, one of god, the other of man.
To be fair, Lewis acknowledged that shades of variation exist in the Tao, while still affirming its general authority. What he seems not to have noticed is that smallest cultural distinctions often have the largest effects. Europe’s Thirty Years War began as a religious conflict between Taoist cousins, Protestants and Catholics. One can hardly imagine a more subtle variation in shades of piety, but the resulting conflict cost between 4.5–8 million souls; Germany’s population declined by as much as 50%. Or, even closer to home, World War I, fought among Christian nations, worshiping the same evangel, but with distinct cultural trajectories. A war that Lewis himself participated in, was wounded in, whose tally of souls was 20 million dead and as many wounded.
Your problem with Lewis is not that he preached virtue ethics. Nor that he wanted virtues to be pounded into the heads of pubescent schoolboys without ambiguity. There’s a time and a place for everything (“When I was a child….”); best shepherd their lagging neocortices (not to mention hormones) with a sturdy staff. You don’t even have a problem with the list of virtues Lewis cherry picked, for the most part.
Your problem is that he presented his preferences as Laws, binding upon all humans for all time—failing to acknowledge, even in his own biblical texts, any number of contrary examples. Whether a liar or a lunatic, to a world characterized by ambiguity Lewis preached certainty. That hideous strength.
handy appendix:
counter examples to the tao from biblical textS
1. Law of General Beneficence
Do not harm others; be kind universally.
- Psalm 137:9 – “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”
- 1 Samuel 15:3 – God commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites, “both man and woman, infant and suckling.”
- Deuteronomy 20:16–17 – No mercy to be shown: “…you shall save alive nothing that breathes.”
- 2 Kings 2:23–24 – Elisha curses mocking boys; 42 are mauled by bears. “When he turned round and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.”
- Exodus 11:5 – The death of all Egyptian firstborn, including children and slaves, is divinely executed. “Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock.”
2. Law of Special Beneficence
Be especially good to family, kin, tribe, or nation.
- Matthew 10:21 – “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child…”
- Luke 14:26 – “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother… he cannot be my disciple.”
- Genesis 22:2 – Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. “He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’”
- Deuteronomy 13:6–9 – If a close relative entices you to idolatry, you must be “the first to put him to death.”
- Leviticus 10:1–2 – God strikes dead Aaron’s sons for offering “unauthorized fire.” “And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.”
3. Duties to Parents, Elders, Ancestors
- Luke 14:26 – Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”
- Luke 9:59-62 – When a man asks to bury his father before following Jesus, He replies, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
- Mark 3:31-35 – When told His mother and brothers were looking for Him, Jesus responded, “Who are my mother and my brothers? … Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
- Judges 11:30–39 – Jephthah’s daughter sacrificed due to vow. “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.’”
- Genesis 9:21–25 – Ham is cursed for seeing his father’s nakedness; “When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan, lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’”
4. Duties to Children and Posterity
- 2 Samuel 12:14–18 – God causes the death of David’s infant son for David’s sin. “But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
- Genesis 22:2 – Command to sacrifice Isaac. “He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’”
- Judges 11:30–39 – Jephthah’s daughter sacrificed due to vow. “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.’”
- Hosea 13:16 – “Their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.”
- Lamentations 4:10 – “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children.”
- Ezekiel 9:6 – God commands, “Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children…”
5. Law of Justice
Includes sexual morality, fairness in court, and honesty.
Counterexamples – (a) sexual justice:
- Genesis 19:8 – Lot offers his virgin daughters to a mob. “Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
- Deuteronomy 21:10–13 – Captive women may be taken as wives. “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, discard her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house for a full month, mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.”
- Judges 19:24–25 – A concubine is gang-raped and later dismembered. “Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.’ But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them. They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning.”
Counterexamples – (b) legal/monetary justice:
- Exodus 12:35–36 – Israelites take gold and silver from Egyptians under divine direction. “The Israelites had done as Moses told them; they had asked the Egyptians for jewellery of silver and gold, and for clothing, and the Lord had given the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And so they plundered the Egyptians.”
- Matthew 20:1–16 – The parable of equal wages seems unfair by human standards of proportional labor. “And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, LFriend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.’”
- Exodus 21:20–21 – “When a slave-owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives for a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property.”
Counterexamples – (c) justice in court:
- Daniel 6 – Daniel is condemned by manipulation of the law, and God doesn’t prevent the decree.
- 1 Kings 21 – Naboth is falsely accused and stoned at Jezebel’s urging so Ahab can seize his land.
6. Law of Good Faith and Veracity
- Exodus 1:15–21 – Hebrew midwives lie to Pharaoh about the baby boys; God blesses them.
- Joshua 2:4–6 – Rahab lies to protect Israelite spies and is praised.
- 1 Kings 22:20–23 – A “lying spirit” is sent by God to deceive Ahab. “He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then the Lord said, “You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.”
- Genesis 27 – Jacob lies to Isaac to steal Esau’s blessing, with Rebekah’s help.
- Genesis 12:10–20 – Abraham lies about Sarah being his sister.
- 2 Kings 8:10 – “Elisha said to him, ‘Go, say to him, “You shall certainly recover”; but the Lord has shown me that he shall certainly die.’”
7. Law of Mercy
- Deuteronomy 7:2 – “You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy.”
- 1 Samuel 15:3 – “Utterly destroy all that they have… spare them not.”
- Joshua 6:21 – “Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.”
- Ezekiel 9:5–6 – “Show no pity or compassion; slaughter old men, young men and women…”
- Luke 16:19–31 – Parable of the rich man and Lazarus presents no mercy after death. “In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.’”
8. Law of Magnanimity
Nobility, courage, self-sacrifice, preference for virtue over comfort.
- Genesis 12:13 – Abraham’s deception to save himself. “Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
- 2 Samuel 11:1 – David’s avoidance of battle. “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab… But David remained at Jerusalem.”
- Jonah 1:3 – Jonah’s flight from duty. “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
- C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (HarperCollins, 2009), Appendix, 84. ↩︎
- C. S. Lewis, “The Poison of Subjectivism,” in Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper (Eerdmans, 1967), 77. Originally published in Religion in Life, vol. XII (Summer 1943). ↩︎
- Arnold J.Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. I (Oxford University Press, 1934), 146. Toynbee identified 21 “species” of society that might be termed “civilizations”: the Western, two Orthodox Christian (in Russia and the Near East), the Iranic, the Arabic, the Hindu, two Far Eastern, the Hellenic, the Syriac, the Indic, the Sinic, the Minoan, the Sumeric, the Hittite, the Babylonic, the Andean, the Mexic, the Yucatec, the Mayan, the Egyptiac; plus five “arrested civilizations”: Polynesian, Eskimo, Nomadic, Ottoman, and Spartan. ↩︎
- Mesopotamia (Sumer), c. 3500 BCE; Ancient Egypt, c. 3100 BCE; Indus Valley Civilization, c. 2600 BCE; Shang China, c. 1600 BCE; Mesoamerica (Olmec), c. 1200 BCE; Andean Region (Norte Chico/Caral), c. 3000–1800 BCE. ↩︎
- These include original writing systems (not borrowed or adapted), urban centers with no evidence of external founding, agricultural development based on local domestication of plants and animals, distinct monumental architecture and religious traditions, and independent technologies (e.g., pottery styles). ↩︎
- Lest you think this was a mere slip of the pen, review what he has to say about “savages” Christian Reflections. ↩︎
- Lewis, “The Poison of Subjectivism,” in Christian Reflections, 73. ↩︎
- Lewis, “On Ethics,” in Christian Reflections, 47. ↩︎
- Lewis, Christian Reflections, x. The volume editor notes: “In a passage from his sermon ‘The Weight of Glory’, beside which modem liberal theology seems embarrassingly vapid, he strikes at the heart of the matter”. ↩︎
- It’s a thing. Known as dual inheritance theory or gene-culture coevolution. Look it up. ↩︎